John Gibson: Here’s why I dodged the lodge

SORRY I couldn’t make it on Friday night, the celebration of the refurb of the Celtic Lodge of Edinburgh and Leith 291 in Brodie’s Close in the Lawnmarket.

“Renovations are overdue,” lodge historian Bill Boland tells me. I understand the lodge provided the trumpeter who sounded the Charge of the Light Brigade.

So, my apologies to Brother Bill and secretary David Hull. Some other time to inspect a brighter Brodie’s Close. Let’s shake on it. Did Jambos, Hibbies and Celtic fans knock on your door on the night, by the way? Just jesting.

Sleeping with the fish suppers

For turf wars, read surf wars. Either way, it’s Italiano. It’s Volare, Volare. The Crollas, the Pias and the Andreuccis. All three families are fish and chip fryers and on my rounds of the chippies in Edinburgh I hear they’ve been having a wee spat.

Nothing serious, though. Nobody’s been battered.

I mean, the fat hasn’t been in the fire. The Crollas are still major league players, with, relatively speaking, the Pias and the Andreuccis down the table a bit. Have you seen the price of a fish supper, by lately? They’re blaming the hike on spuds.

Mind yer heid

Turning black to white. The monument to Adam Black in Princes Street Gardens is the ideal public lavatory for the gulls and pigeons that perch atop poor old defenceless Adam’s head.

They don’t care a hoot about emptying their bowels up there on a defenceless individual’s nut. What’s needed to keep them, apart form a blunderbuss, are spikey pins. To the Capital’s city councillors, though, that’s rocket science.